?Pretty certain you don?t know her or pretty certain you don?t recall??
?A mess of folks come in.?
?This fellow Eriksson and the lady were drunk??
The clerk looked blankly at Hackberry.
?Eriksson is the real name of the man who was impersonating Pete Flores. He and the woman were drunk??
?Pretty marinated,? the clerk said, starting to smile for the first time.
?For ID, Eriksson had a library card??
?Yes, sir, that was the extent of it.?
?Why?d you take the check in back??
?To run it by my manager.?
?After five years here, you had to consult with your manager? You didn?t know the check was stolen, one brought in by a drunk with a library card? You had to ask your manager? That?s what you?re telling me??
?It?s like I said.?
?There?s no reason Eriksson would have a history with a business like yours. That means the woman probably brought him here. I also think she?s probably a hooker and a shill and brings her customers here with regularity. I think you?re lying through your teeth, bub.?
?Maybe I?ve seen her once or twice,? the clerk said, his eyes shifting off Hackberry?s face.
?What?s her name??
?She goes by ?Mona,? I think.?
Hackberry pulled at his earlobe. ?Where does Mona live??
?Probably any place a guy has a bottle and two glasses and a few bucks. I don?t know where she lives. She?s not a bad person. Why don?t you give her a break??
?Tell that to the guy Liam Eriksson tortured to death,? Hackberry said.
The clerk threw up his hands. ?Am I in the shitter??
?Could be,? Hackberry said. ?I?ll be giving it some thought.?
HACKBERRY AND PAM began their search for the woman named Mona in a backward pattern, starting up the street through a series of low-bottom bars where no one seemed to possess any memory for either faces or names. Then they reversed direction and went block by block through a district of secondhand stores, and missions that sheltered the homeless, and bars with darkened interiors, where, like prisons, time was not measured in terms of the external world and the patrons did not have to make comparisons.
Hackberry didn?t know if the cause was the smell of the alcohol or the dissolute and wan expression on the faces of the twenty-four-hour drinkers at the bar when he opened the front door of a saloon, but he soon found himself revisiting his long courtship with Jack Daniel?s, like a compulsive man picking up pieces of glass with his fingertips.
Actually, ?courtship? wasn?t the appropriate word. Hackberry?s experience with charcoal-filtered whiskey had been a love affair as intense as any sexual relationship he?d ever had. He?d dreamed about it, awakened with a thirst for it in the morning, and turned the first drink of the day into a religious ritual, bruising a sprig of mint inside the glass, staining the shaved ice with three fingers of Jack, adding a half teaspoon of sugar, then setting the glass in the freezer for twenty minutes while he pretended that whiskey had no control over his life. The first sip made him close his eyes with a sense of both release and visceral serenity that he could associate only with the rush and sense of peace that a morphine drip had purchased for him in a naval hospital.
?Not much luck, huh, kemosabe?? Pam said as they entered a saloon that was defined by an old checkerboard dance floor and a long railed bar with a big yellowed mahogany-framed mirror behind it.
?What?d you call me?? Hackberry asked.
?It?s just a joke. Remember the Lone Ranger and his sidekick, Tonto? Tonto was always calling the Lone Ranger ?kemosabe.??
?That?s what Rie, my second wife, used to call me.?
?Oh,? Pam replied, clearly not knowing what else to say.
Hackberry opened his badge holder and placed the photo of Liam Eriksson on the bar for the bartender to look at. ?Ever see this guy in here?? he said.